Shot Analysis: MarShon Brooks

MarShon! The semi-fro!

This is the 3rd (and final post) in a series on analyzing shot charts of the more important Nets (sans Brook Lopez because of his limited play last year) and how they fared shooting from the field last season. We finish up with MarShon Brooks. Joe Johnson was analyzed last.

In college, MarShon Brooks was far-and-away known for his offensive skills above anything else regarding his status and basketball acumen. College, and pro, basketball fans alike undoubtedly began to hear Brooks’ name after he dropped 52 points on a talented Notre Dame team while playing for Providence. Sure, it was just a regular season game between two non-elite squads, but whenever anyone in college–playing with just 2 20-minute halves–scores that many points, they are bound to get attention. Even with all the extra eyes from NBA teams that were trained on him in the second half, MarShon managed to fall to the 25th pick in the 2011 NBA Draft, where he was drafted by the Celtics and immediately dealt to the Nets for the 27th pick (JaJuan Johnson) and a 2014 second-rounder.
As any Nets fan knows, Brooks’ rookie season was a very mixed bag. He definitely showed a ton of offensive ability, hitting Kobe-like contested fadeaway jumpers with regularity and using his unusual length to get to the rim and finish with authority. MarShon’s main weakness, his defense (or lack of it), was very noticeable and seems to be the reason why he fell so far in the first round of the 2011 Draft. However, we won’t look into his defensive woes in the post, we’ll focus on his offense.

The chart below, from VORPED.com, shows Brooks’ shooting percentages from all spots on the floor during his rookie campaign with the Nets:

What we can see is that MarShon’s shot efficiency was great in the corners and along the baseline, significantly dropped–from both two-point and three-point range–as he moved to the wing, and then rebounded when he shot from the top of the key. From the left mid-range spot along the baseline, MarShon shot a scorching 55.6 percent last season, a high percentage that even extended into the two paint areas along the baseline. His ridiculous length and wingspan for a shooting guard is probably the cause as defenders shade towards the middle of the court to prevent MarShon from passing out of the baseline, leaving a direct path to the basket open.

According to the chart, Brooks didn’t shoot as well from mid-range–and three-point range–at the two wing spots on the floor, sporting weak 38.6 percent and 32 percent marks at both places. Also, the right wing mid-range spot (75 shots) is where MarShon took his most jumpers from, which is interesting because it’s his least accurate position.

Moving out beyond the arc, MarShon’s highest percentage came from the top of the key (38.9 percent) but ended up taking most of his threes from the wing spots, where he didn’t shoot particularly well. He didn’t many threes from the corner spots (total of 35 shots) and was slightly better from the right than the left.

Ok, what does that leave us with? Well the chart shows that MarShon tends to take more shots–at least from mid-range and three-point range–from the spots on the floor that he is the least accurate. That’s a pretty profound discovery because one would think that all players would gravitate towards the areas of the floor where they make more shots. As the season progresses, and MarShon puts up more in-game shots, it will be interesting to see if he will make any adjustments in his sophomore campaign from his rookie year. Be ready for that post in a few months. But for now, goodbye peoples.